Monthly Archives: May 2014

I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! I hope you guys were able to spend some quality time with family and friends (we had a big party at our swim and tennis club) while still remembering the reason we are able to enjoy this extra day off work. Thank you and god bless to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country!

Earlier this weekend, I finished quilting and binding my Jelly Roll Jam baby quilt. And it is a good thing too because the little guy I was making it for made his appearance earlier today!

This was my first time attempting to do spiral quilting. I did everything on my home machine and was pleasantly surprised with how well it went! And I LOVE the effect this quilting leaves! So don’t be intimidated by the spiral – they are definitely worth the effort and aren’t nearly as complicated as I anticipated!

A big thank you to those of you who weighed in on the border/no border debate. As you can see, I decided to go with a border but I did stray from the gray/white I was thinking and went with Kona Khaki! The warmer tones in the khaki looked so much better alongside the quilt top compared to the cooler grays and whites.

I tried something new with this quilt that I always hear mixed reviews about in the quilting world. When I was sewing down my binding (I finished it by machine), I used a different color thread in my bobbin than on my spool!

I knew I wanted to use the same teal thread from my quilting on my spool so that it would blend into the binding fabric, but the bobbin thread was going to be making a straight line down the edge of my khaki border and I felt the teal would stand out too much (especially with the spiral quilting). So I used a tan thread in my bobbin to blend with the Kona khaki and I’m happy to report that I didn’t have any issues with the different colors poking through onto the opposite side. I guess I must have my tension set really well!

I also love how this label turns out and I think it is my favorite I have made so far. As you can see from this picture, the teal thread I used for quilting blended almost perfectly into the quilt back!

Now let’s get real for a second here. I know the blogging world likes to present these “perfect” finished projects when we share our creations (heck – I’m guilty of this too!) but sometimes I think it is nice to see that our quilts don’t have to be “perfect” for them to look great.

While it is true what I said above that spiral quilting wasn’t nearly as hard as I expected, my spiral still isn’t perfect.

See those wonky lines and little points coming off of what is supposed to be a smooth continuous curve? If you looked really closely, there are plenty of little mistakes like this throughout my quilting. But they don’t change to overall effect of the spiral (you’d NEVER notice them when taking in the quilt as a whole) nor do they hurt the actual construction and durability of the quilt.

In my opinion, it is these little imperfections that really show that something is handmade. Nothing we make by hand is ever going to be “perfect” (ie mistake free), but it is the time and effort and love that we put into a creation that really makes it perfect.

I hope no one ever feels like their work isn’t “good enough” because it doesn’t seem as “perfect” as the final projects presented by others. Embrace the imperfections because they are what make each of our projects special!

Overall, I am really happy with the quilt and it is a great pattern for something you want to come together quickly but still have a lot of visual interest.

I can’t wait to meet my friend’s new little bundle of joy and to give him his present!

The blocks that I made this month for the Stash Bee have definitely inspired a new project in my head (Just what all we quilters need right? Another quilt plan in the queue!). Shena B, who blogs at Apple Pie Patchwork, was our Queen Bee for the month and she requested Scrappy Mountain blocks.

I’ve seen these blocks around blog land before but never knew how to make them. Turns out they go together really quickly! Shena wanted a scrappy look with each block using 1 bright, modern print and 1 low volume / light colored print. Here’s the fabrics I pulled for this month:

As I said, these blocks go together really quickly. They just require HST and then with a little slicing and rearranging, you’re done!

I made two sets of blocks for a total of 4 quadrants. Here the second color combination. Aren’t the birds fun? 🙂

Since there are lots of different ways to arrange these blocks, Shena requested that we not sew them together so that she can play with layouts once she has everyone’s blocks and decide which direction she wants to go.

It took me longer to post this entry as I debated for a bit about what would be the best category for this quilt. I’ve ultimately decided to submit my Spherical Stars quilt in the Small Quilts category.

This quilt was made for Julie at the Intrepid Thread to be used as a sample/display in her brick and mortar shop in conjunction with the release of the new Sphere line of fabrics by Zen Chic.

I loved the colors in this line! And the combination of many low volume prints with the more saturated colors worked really well for the Magic Stars pattern.

The blocks that make up this quilt were really fun to make. They look like they should be really complicated and take a lot of piecing and seams but Aneela Hoey provides a great shortcut method in her pattern (that I never would have thought of) that makes putting these blocks together quick and easy!

Thanks for stopping by and letting me share my Spherical Stars quilt! I hope you enjoy the Blogger’s Quilt Festival and all the lovely creations everyone is entering!

It’s Blogger’s Quilt Festival time again! Amy over at Amy’s Creative Side hosts this event twice a year, timed in conjunction with Quilt Market. I was too new to quilting to have anything to enter last fall but I had a lot of fun going through each quilt category and checking out everyone’s beautiful work!

This year, I wanted to enter my Born to Quilt mini that I made last month. This quilt is actually over at Quilt Market in the Windham Fabrics both to help show off their new fabric line!

“Born to Quilt” MiniQuilt Stats:Size: 18″ x 18″Pattern: None. This quilt was my own design.Type of Quilting: Straight Line on my home machine with some decorative hand stitchingFabric Line(s) Used: “Born to Quilt” by Another Point of View for Windham FabricsDate Finished: April 2014

Making this quilt really stretched me, especially as a new quilter. I’ve really only worked with relatively bright colors so far so when a stack of primarily black and white fabrics appeared on my doorstep, all the plans I had in my head for this quilt had to be reworked.

Windham sent me this fun green print to use as my backing (not a part of the “Born to Quilt” fabric line).

In addition to straight line quilting, I did some decorative hand embroidery in the center panel around the fussy cut phrases. Here a detail shot of the hand stitched embroidery. I matched the DMC Perle cotton to the text of each phrase. I think it gives a nice extra touch of color and was something I’d never tried before. It is probably my favorite part of this mini!

I had so much fun making this quilt and I really enjoyed getting to try some new techniques (fussy cutting, hand embroidery) that I hadn’t done previously! Oh, and if anyone at Quilt Market this weekend happens to see it hanging in the Windham Fabrics booth, I would love it if you snapped a picture and sent it my way!

Thanks for stopping by and letting me share my mini quilt! I hope you enjoy the Blogger’s Quilt Festival and all the lovely creations everyone is entering!

It was really gross and rainy outside yesterday evening – the perfect kind of weather to stay inside and sew! And since the rain meant I couldn’t mow the lawn, I had plenty of time to finish piecing the top for my Jelly Roll Jam quilt!

After I’d sewn all the strips together, I used glue basting for the rest of the piecing to try to make sure all of my seams were matched up nicely. Glue basting is probably my new favorite technique and I’d say it worked pretty well here.

My only concern with this quilt top is its size. It is only about 36″ square currently which just feels a little small. But then again, it is supposed to be a baby quilt.

I was thinking about adding a solid border around the outside (maybe 2.5″ – 3″ wide). It would probably be a white or gray so that the colors from the jelly roll still pop and are allowed to shine.

Man – It has been a crazy last week and I feel like I’ve hardly spent any time on my sewing machine! Between my tennis team and my husband’s tennis team both playing in playoffs last weekend, to losing my grandma early this week and going out of town for my sister-in-law’s PA school graduation this weekend, time has just flown by!

I did manage to put a little bit of time in getting started on a new baby quilt though! I mentioned back when I started on the Baby’s First ABCs quilt that I had bought a jelly roll of Riley Blake’s Boy Crazy line but didn’t have time to put that quilt together in time for her baby shower. Well that same friend is due this month so I wanted to turn that jelly roll into a Jelly Roll Jam Quilt using the Fat Quarter Shop’s free pattern!

Don’t jelly rolls look so fun all rolled up? 🙂

I chose a couple of prints from the Boy Crazy line to feature as the backing and the binding. The backing is the Boy Crazy Main print in teal and the binding is the Boy Crazy Circles in teal.

I was able to divide the 2.5″ strips into three groups and get each group sewn together. I tried to evenly balance the colors from each group and I was able to use every print in the line except for the coordinating solids.

Hopefully I can spend some more time at my sewing machine this week so I can have this quilt ready to go as a welcome home present for her new little boy (whenever he decides to make his appearance!)!